The Nanny (the one-shot)
by TheFanWhoWasntThere
Summary: "I may be the world's greatest heartthrob, my agent's biggest headache and the least organized man alive, but why would I need a nanny? I'm Edward Cullen and this is the story of how my new PA Isabella took over my life and my underwear." One-shot written for the MakeMeLaugh contest.


Make Me Laugh Contest Entry

Title: The Nanny

Pen Name: TheFanWhoWasntThere

Picture prompt used: 47

Rating: M for language and some adult themes.

Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the names and characters of Twilight. I'm just playing around and making them do weird stuff.

Summary: "I may be the world's greatest heartthrob, my agent's biggest headache and the least organized man alive, but why would I need a nanny? I'm Edward Cullen and this is the story of how my new PA Isabella took over my life and my underwear."

The Nanny – the one-shot. (Prompt 47)

"Oh, by the way, we're getting you a new PA," Stephanie said, just as I was rising from the chair in her office, thinking that our meeting was over. I sat down again, with a groan.

"Whaaaat? I don't need a PA! Isn't it enough with you and Mike and the body guards? Why would I need a PA!?" I ran my hands through my hair, tugging at the locks, before slumping hopelessly forward, my arms on my knees. I would never, ever get used to all this celebrity BS. I looked down at the floor before giving Stephanie my best pleading look.

Stephanie shook her head, smirking at me.

"Oh no, that look doesn't work on me, my lovely. We're getting you a PA because you need someone to manage your day-to-day schedule: traveling, appointments, attire, interviews, locations, getting you to the right place at the right time, prepping you and keeping track of everything, so that YOU don't have to."

"Fuck," I muttered to the puke-green carpet. "I don't need a fucking nanny, Steph!"

"Shut up, dear boy. I'm sick of having to cover for you every time you go boozing with your friends and end up with your ass out somebody's car window. Or trying to chase you down when you don't turn up for an interview, or tearing my hair out when you show up at an awards show looking like death warmed over with your shirt tail hanging out. I've. Had. Enough."

Stephanie was pointing at me with raised eyebrows. OK, so maybe I wasn't the best at remembering things like what I was supposed to be doing every day and who I was seeing when, but all of that seemed to have been working out passably fine so far, so why did I need a PA now? I groaned quietly again, resigning myself to the fact that this was probably one of those things where I had no say whatsoever.

"In fact, she's here today, so I thought I would introduce you right away and get her started on your schedule as of today. She will be flying out with you tomorrow, and I would like to get her all the information she needs today."

"I can't believe you're getting me a fucking nanny!" I exclaimed, dragging my feet under me and rising, looking towards the door. Stephanie was speaking into her intercom and soon the door swung open and a woman in her late twenties or early thirties dressed in a black pants suit stepped through the door, approaching me with outstretched hand and a confident smile. I appraised her while I took her hand, trying to force a genuine-looking smile on my face. No need to be appallingly rude before I even knew who this was they were forcing on me.

"This is Isabella, who will be your personal assistant," Stephanie was saying, making introductions. "This is Edward, whose calendar you will be in charge of from now on. Edward, I'm sure you will do everything to help Isabella to do her job, just as I know that Isabella will be a great help to you in your day-to-day activities."

I smirked to myself, thinking of my regular day-to-day activities and wondering just how my nanny was going to help me with those, when Isabella smiled at me. I wiped the leer off my face and took a good look at her. I saw a medium tall, dark-haired woman with a pony tail and a rather pretty face, smile wrinkles fanning out around her dark brown eyes. She had small silver ear rings and a big, masculine-looking watch but no other jewelry, so I figured she wasn't married. Hell, having a family would be kind of difficult if she was going to be trailing around the world with me. I sighed again, hoping that this was not going to be the huge nuisance I had the feeling it was going to be. I willed away the beginning of a boner, telling myself it was just the hangover twitching. I needed a pick-me-up.

"Well, I guess you won't be needing me right now," I said, waving my hand vaguely and moving towards the exit, longing to adjust myself in private without these two women watching.

"See you tomorrow, eh… Isabella?" And I quickly made my getaway to the lift where I could scratch my balls in private. I was eager to get back to my plans for the night: going to a concert with a couple of friends, getting pleasantly sloshed in the process. I felt slightly pissed at the thought of what the future might bring now. I was way too old to be dragging a nanny around, even if she was good-looking. I sure hoped she would be professional about this and not try to act like my mother. Although my mother was rather cool, she could be a big nuisance too.

Later that same night I was hanging out at the club behind the scenes. I was watching one of my best friends doing his thing on stage while chatting to two other friends and drinking beer, nicely buzzed. I kind of wished at times like these that I too could get up on that stage and jam away, but I knew that those days were over, at least as long as I was here, in fucked-up Hollywood.

One day, maybe, I would be able to play at a club and not be instantly recognized, snapped and recorded as Edward Cullen, movie star and heart throb extraordinaire, but who knows when? Until then I would have to make do with playing in hotel room parties for bored co-workers, who were as locked up as me in circumstances beyond their control.

Right now, I was feeling cuddly and kind of horny with the booze in my system, and realized I should either find myself a nice girl to fondle or get myself home and spank the monkey alone since I was catching a plane tomorrow morning. Just as I was going to see about getting a cab, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I picked it up and heard an unfamiliar voice.

"This is Isabella speaking. I have a car ready for you and it will be outside the stage entrance in exactly three minutes. I need you to get ready to go to the back door, and when I tell you, open the door and come out. Keep your head down. There are paparazzi in the audience inside and on the street outside, so you should brace yourself for some flashes and photos. I will be there to accompany you to the car. Is everything clear?" She paused for my reply.

I was only slowly piecing together the low, calm voice in my ear with the smiling woman I had met earlier today. Isabella was … here? And she had anticipated my need for transport right at this moment? Weird. I cleared my throat and said, "Right, I got you. I'll be there."

I looked around and asked some of the crew for the back entrance, waved at Sam who was receiving a big hand from the crowd, and shoved my two mates toward the door. I wasn't going to do this alone, and maybe we would still have time for a beer back at the hotel before I packed and crashed.

I waited at the back door for a minute, my phone in my hand, and when it buzzed again, we didn't wait but shoved the door open. Outside in the alley was Isabella, wearing a trench coat and scarf, and brown leather boots, looking like Sherlock fucking Holmes. She had an unopened umbrella in her hand, although it wasn't raining, and she quickly escorted us towards the end of the alley, where a cab was waiting with the motor running.

I tried to move quickly, but felt like Bambi with my feet strangely too far away from the rest of my body. Suddenly, I tripped and face-planted on the ground. _Ouch_! Before I could start swearing, hands of steel yanked me up from the dirty pavement and I was shoved with scary precision in the direction of the car door, whimpering at the sting in my scratched palms.

Already, some people were coming running towards the cab from the other direction, getting a whiff of the action, but before we had time to duck into the car, Isabella was in front of us, opening her umbrella, and shoving it in the faces of the clicking cameras, as if she were shooing off cattle. As soon as we were in the car, Isabella slid into the front seat and clicked the doors shut, saying "Drive!" in a tone of voice that left no choice for the driver but to screech off as soon as he could swerve around the scattered crowd in the alley.

Soon we were speeding through the night towards the hotel, laughing and whooping about how surprised those photographers had looked when Isabella pulled out her umbrella trick.

"Who is she, man?" Tom asked. "She looks like Secret Service to me!"

I shook my head, still laughing. "No way, this is Isabella, my new PA!" I giggled, then abruptly stopped when I heard how silly I sounded. "Isn't that right? " I added, lamely.

She half-turned her head, enough so that I could see a small smile on her lips.

"Yes, sir," was her only reply. Inexplicably, I was hard again. I guessed I should be doing something about that sometime soon, but until then I crouched over, trying to hide it from my friends. We may be bros, but I wouldn't want them to get the wrong idea about my feelings for them.

When we got back to the hotel, Isabella quickly ushered us in to the elevator, but once we were inside she looked at Tom and Mark and said, still with that small smile, but with eyes that told a different story:

"I believe that now it's time for these two gentlemen to call it a night. You will be getting your wake-up call at six thirty in the morning, and we will leave by seven thirty, sir, so I really need to get you to bed straight away, sir."

I opened my mouth to protest as I heard Tom and Mark groan, but one look at Isabella made the words stick in my throat. She was looking at me in a way that was really intimidating. Her brown eyes were boring into mine, and that smile that didn't reach her eyes was saying "If you try to fuck with me now, I'm having your ass in so many ways, you won't think it's funny." I swallowed.

"OK, so Isabella is really right, I was going to say it's time to call it a night anyway. It was a lot of fun, and I will see you again when I get back to LA, right Mark? And you will be coming over to Vancouver next month, right Tom?" I was trying to smooth things over, but I could tell that the guys were disappointed. However, one look at Isabella made them realize the seriousness of the situation, and they didn't object when Isabella herded me off on my floor and then stood in the door to the elevator to stop the other two from exiting. They mumbled their goodbyes and rode right down again. Meanwhile I was walking unsteadily towards my door, hearing the footsteps of those boots on the carpet behind me. _Fuck this bloody hard-on! _I was also really longing to take a piss. Fortunately, I was only minutes away from relieving myself, once I could get my dick in working order.

I fumbled with my door card, but finally the door opened, and I stepped through the door, surprised to discover that Isabella was right behind me. She quickly slipped out of her coat and left it on a chair by the entrance, and walked ahead of me into the bedroom, where she started putting things into an unfamiliar carry-on bag. My suite was the usual mess, with clothes strewn all over the place, wrappers and empty cans on the table and magazines and books on the floor and chairs, but she seemed to be working on instinct and had swiftly scooped out my favorite shirts and jeans. Now she was breezing into the bathroom, and since I really had to be alone in there and fucking use the loo, I tried to head her off.

"Wait, Isabella, you really don't have to do this. Actually I prefer to do my own packing, and I would like to have some privacy now … if you don't mind … " I trailed off lamely. I might as well have been talking to a pleasant wall, as Isabella just smiled over her shoulder and disappeared into the bathroom. MY bathroom. Oh, man did I need to pee – all that beer was obviously getting to me now. I folded myself over in a chair, tried to suppress the pain in my kidney by crossing my legs really hard over my shrinking dick and turned on the television to cover the sound of my low moans.

Thankfully, within minutes, Isabella was back, dropping a bag of toiletries into the carry-on, and stopping in front of me. I gritted my teeth and tried hard to forget the impulse to run double-bent into the bathroom right away.

"I will be giving you a wake-up call of my own 45 minutes ahead of the time we need to leave. I'll get you some breakfast that you can eat in the car. Please don't forget to pack whatever reading material you'd like to bring with you. I have some manuscripts that you will need to go over in the next two weeks, but we'll get back to that. I have arranged for someone to take care of the rest of your things here and have them forwarded, so you don't have to worry about any more packing. Will that be all, sir?"

I tried to speak through the excruciating pain of a bursting bladder. "Yes, thank you. Goodnight. And, Isabella – could you please not call me sir? Edward will do."

"Yes, sir. You may use the bathroom now. Goodnight." And with a final, enigmatic smile, she turned around, picked up her coat and umbrella and was out the door. With a groan I stumbled to the bathroom and had the most satisfying fucking pee of my whole life. What a bossy PA she was. This was going to be hard work, I could see it now.

The next morning, my brain was foggy from lack of sleep or too much beer or both, when the phone rang insistently from somewhere in the room, and forced me awake. Oh. My wake-up call. I managed to locate the phone, lift it and replace it, and fell back in bed with a deep sigh. But I hadn't been lying there more than a minute when the phone started ringing again, and I dragged myself over so I could reach it, and pick it up to my ear this time.

"Yessss," I hissed.

"Good morning, sir. This is Isabella. You have 40 minutes until the car leaves, and I will be at your door in 35 minutes. May I suggest that you get up now and take a refreshing shower and get dressed? Don't forget your reading material, and any musical instrument you need to bring. I have made sure that there will be room for your guitar on board. See you soon."

And with a click the receiver was replaced. I felt the impulse to sink back into the peaceful haven of my sheets. But the mere thought of Isabella outside my door made me shake myself and get up, plodding obediently towards the bathroom. No need to antagonize my new scary PA by oversleeping on the first day, right?

Exactly 30 minutes later, I was showered and trying to get dressed, but failing miserably to locate any clean underwear. I couldn't even find the damned boxers I'd used yesterday! I was standing in my shirt with bare ass and yesterday's jeans in my hand and with my hair still wet and sticking up all over the place looking around the room for my copy of _The New York Trilogy_ when there was a knock at the door. Swearing under my breath I decided to go commando and, wincing, I tucked myself into my pants. Hell, but new jeans were really fucking scratchy on my sensitive skin! I swiftly decided that Paul Auster could wait, and hurried to open the door. Isabella was scowling at me under well-groomed eyebrows, moving into the room with a travel mug in her hand that she shoved my way.

"Sir, please never open the door without making sure who is outside it. I suggest that we use a particular knock when I arrive, so you won't have to doubt that it's me, but for the rest, always check the spy hole and ask through the door before you unlock it. Is there anything else you need to pack before we go?"

Totally bewildered, I was still standing with the door in my one hand and the coffee in my other hand while she was swooping like a hawk through the suite and into the bedroom. A hawk dressed in a pearl grey pants suit and low heels, with her dark pony tail swishing aggressively over her shoulder. Her own bag was parked neatly outside, a grey Samsonite, as professional looking as herself.

"Eh, sure we can make up a secret knock, if you will, and no, I don't have anything else I need to pack, except I can't find the book I was reading yesterday. Oh, never mind, I'll just get my jacket and shoes."

I was still looking around the room vaguely wondering where I had kicked off my sneakers last night, when Isabella suddenly emerged from the bedroom, rolling my new bag with one hand and waving my copy of _The New York trilogy_ in the air with the other.

"There it is! How did you know?"

She tossed it to me, and I just managed to catch it with my one free hand without making an ass of myself, when she bent over and, slinging my sneakers out from under the couch, tossed them on the floor in my direction. With a surreptitious glance at her ass I sat down and put the coffee and book down to get my shoes on as quickly as possible without bothering to look for socks because this woman was fast!

Before I knew it we were out of the hotel and into the waiting car with my bodyguard, heading for the airport. The sky was grey, it was early in the morning, and I drank the coffee and ate the bagel Isabella had brought for me, trying not to slobber, while she was talking quietly on the phone with someone. I concentrated on trying not to fidget in my seat at the fiery sensation building in my crotch.

When we got to the airport Isabella climbed out of the car ahead of me and held the door open for me. Balancing my coffee mug in one hand and my guitar in the other I barely avoided face planting on the sidewalk again, but kept my dignity by doing a little dance in front of Isabella. Before I could walk away from the embarrassing scene she stopped me.

"Sir, if you please. There's something coming out of your pants." I stiffened immediately. Did I forget to close my fly and was my dick dangling out? I looked down and was both relieved and humiliated to see the missing boxers flapping over my left sneaker. _Oh, God_. Before I could do anything about it, Isabella swooped in and whipped the offending material away and let it disappear into her purse. I tried not to think about what those boxers might smell like, and how weird it was for her to carry men's underwear in her purse. It struck me what it would be like if I was carrying a piece of women's lingerie in my pant pocket instead, which reminded me a little too much of sexy times I'd had with Tanya last month and _Ouch! _There was that uncomfortable boner again.

I waved Bella ahead to have time to lose the burning in my face and the equally awkward burning between my legs. I ended up walking stiffly but dignified about five feet behind her, holding my guitar angled in front of me.

Isabella had arranged our entrance through the VIP channel, and luckily I didn't think anyone got the chance to snap my picture this time, which was a relief because not only was I walking as if I'd shit my pants, I was tired as fuck and feeling very exposed since I forgot to put my baseball cap and Ray-Bans on this morning.

Isabella seemed to have everything organized, and we breezed through security. Then she stopped to point out the bathroom and hand me my toothbrush and toothpaste _wow, how did she do that? _so I could get the stale taste of coffee out of my mouth. I also used some of my private time to stroke my poor balls soothingly and took a piss. When I finally settled in my seat in the plane, she was right there by my side again and dropped something in my lap. I looked down, then up, and caught her smile before she walked away. A brand new pair of boxer shorts in my size. Either she spied on me in the bathroom or that woman must be a damned psychic!

I looked around for her, but she'd disappeared before I even got the chance to say "thank you for organizing my morning." After visiting the tiny bathroom and performing an acrobatic act wiggling out of my jeans and tucking my poor dick inside my soft new underwear, the rest of the trip was peaceful. I dozed off and tried to read my book. Maybe having a PA wasn't such a bad idea after all. At least my dick and balls were thanking her.

Next thing I know, someone was shaking my shoulder. Isabella.

"Wake up, sir, it's time to leave the plane." Great. I had drool on my chin and I didn't know how long I'd been asleep. I stumbled to my feet and Isabella unstrapped my guitar from its seat while I wrestled with my jacket.

"Um, Isabella, I can carry that myself …" I tried, but she breezed out ahead of me with my guitar in one hand and her own carry-on bag in the other. A nice air hostess gave me my bag with a brilliant smile and I tried to smile back at her as I untangled my long legs from the bag that was trying to trip me up when I sped after my rocketing PA through the empty plane.

Vancouver in October was really pretty fucking chilly compared to Los Angeles, and I shuddered in my thin jacket. Isabella eyed me without comment and I tried to tough it out and not shiver like a baby as we rushed into the waiting car.

"They're expecting you at the studio at 2 o'clock, so I'll have someone send up a sandwich to your room and you'll be picked up at 1.15, all right?" Isabella spoke in clipped sentences sharp enough to nick your ears and make them bleed. I don't know why I found that so fucking sexy? My body guard was in the front with the driver and I shared the backseat with Isabella. I could smell something nice and flowery when she was sitting this close to me. I glanced at the space where her tits must be, but they were well hidden under a shirt and jacket. When I saw that she noticed me looking, I quickly looked away, but not before I caught the full assault of her glare straight between the eyes. _Ouch! How can the woman give me a headache just with her eyes?_

Isabella deposited me and my luggage in my hotel suite on the eleventh floor, and I immediately stripped down to my boxers and t-shirt and crashed on the bed, after fishing out a beer from the mini-bar. I had another hour until I needed to get going again and I was going to use it to the fullest. Looking for porn on the TV channels is a moment's work for someone with my hotel experience, and I was about to settle in for a relaxing wank-off when there was a knock at the door. Swearing, I struggled into my jeans again, and hopped to the door on one leg. I remembered Isabella's comment, so I asked "Who's there?"

"What do you fucking mean 'Who's there?' Don't play games with me Edward! Open the door!"

I sighed and obeyed the screechy female voice of my girlfriend for all intents and purposes, my beautiful strawberry blonde co-star Tanya Denali. She glared at me as she breezed into my suite and quickly looked around, checking the bathroom and the closet for good measure. All because of that one time when another one of my female co-stars was hiding in the closet in her underwear. There's no trust in this woman, no trust at all.

Once Tanya had established that she was the only one with tits in the room, she wasted no time, but locked lips with me. She was soft and curvy in all the right places, and I was soon regretting that I'd wasted time on pulling up my pants when Tanya's nimble fingers opened the zipper and palmed what was underneath. Moaning, I pulled her down on the bed with me, and within minutes the porn actors on the television screen had some live competition. It's happened before that we have had sex while watching porn on the TV. I think that it's often improved our performance because we unconsciously try to copy the actors on the screen. Copy cats: that's what we actors are.

After spending a vigorous half hour on satisfying each other's needs we were lounging on the bed watching porn, eating peanuts and finishing the beer when there was another knock at the door. I looked at the time and swore aloud as I rolled out of bed and fumbled for my pants.

"What's wrong, Edward?" Tanya called, but as soon as I opened the door, she rolled out of bed, too, wrapping herself in a sheet, curious as hell to know who the woman at my door was.

The look on Isabella's face when she saw me answering the door half-naked and shoeless was one of surprise and faint disapproval. "The car is downstairs waiting now, sir. We need to get going soon. Did you have lunch?" I shook my head. That sandwich had completely slipped my mind and now I could feel my stomach growling.

Tanya of course chose this moment to make her presence known as she wrapped her arms around my chest and purred over my shoulder; "Oh, Edward ate all right. Just not the kind of lunch you had in mind maybe." Her throaty laugh is usually one of the sexier things about her, but right now it grated on my nerves. I saw Isabella flinch, and suddenly I felt pretty disgusting. The sounds of the porn actors on television were filtering through the suite and Tanya's hands were straying over my abs in the most suggestive way. I'd been two hours in Vancouver and I was already busy fucking my brains out. I must look like a complete sex fiend to my new PA.

But before I could say anything to smooth over the awkwardness of the situation, Isabella smiled a tight little smile and said, "Very well, if you would meet me at the elevator in ten minutes I will show you the way to the service entrance." She pulled the door closed as she left me and I stood there staring at it for a minute like a moron. "Who was that stuck-up bitch?" Tanya asked languidly.

"It's my new PA Isabella for fuck's sake. Oh, damn it, I'm late!" I told Tanya between gritted teeth as I untangled myself from her embrace, scooped up my clothes and ran to the bathroom to wash the sex smell off my skin. I couldn't hear what Tanya was saying because of the shower, but when I came out of the bathroom buttoning my shirt she was standing by the door smoothing her hair and putting on lipstick.

"I'm coming with you darling. I've got my manuscript in my handbag so we can go straight to the car."

My manuscript! I had no idea where it was, but I really had no time to look for it right now or to argue with Tanya, so I simply took my wallet and key card from the coffee table and ran out of the room, trusting that Tanya was old enough to come along without handholding. Isabella stood waiting by the elevator, but when she saw us, she turned around and led the way down the corridor to a smaller service elevator at the back of the hotel. It wasn't exactly crowded with us three in there, but it was still damned uncomfortable, especially since Tanya still reeked of sex and kept smirking at Isabella, who fortunately wasn't looking her way. Just before we reached the ground floor, Isabella opened her bag and handed me something.

"I believe this belongs to you." My manuscript! I almost burst out in a stream of praise for her organization skills, but then she dropped something else on top of the papers. My boxer shorts.

"And I kept these for you. They're clean, now." As she walked ahead of us into the corridor, I barely had time to block Tanya's vicious kick to my balls as she whispered "Later, motherfucker!" and followed Isabella out of the elevator. I hobbled after them to the car, clutching my things to my chest, wishing that some kind paparazzi would turn up and take me with him instead.

Vancouver in October. Everything felt pretty much like slipping into a routine by now. We were filming the third installment of the movie series that brought me fame and heartthrob status and which threw me into this world where I need PA:s, body guards, an agent, manager and fuck-all just to get through life.

I was reunited with the same cast of new young actors like myself who got their names in the papers playing mutant superheroes, and a sprinkling of old experienced hands who probably only got drawn into this franchise by being offered hefty wads of cash. The young actors were Kate, Rosalie, Emmet, Riley – and Tanya, of course. Kate is sweet and Rosalie bitchy, while Riley is the cool rocker kid to Emmet's boisterous hulk of a man. Tanya plays my onscreen romance Lilah. She quickly slipped from being someone I flirted with during the shooting of the first movie to someone who is now the closest thing I have to a girlfriend, even if our relationship is sort of on-again, off-again.

The first couple of weeks of the shoot we stayed in the hotel, but then Isabella informed me that they had arranged for some of us to stay in a rented house where we could have more privacy. Some of us being me, Tanya, Kate and Riley. The house turned out to be quite nice, a spacious two-story villa in a walled garden, five bedrooms with bathrooms, a huge kitchen, nice living room, library and a den where we set up our Wii and Playstation headquarters.

Isabella has become quite the expert at arranging our catering but is rarely around once the party is started. When we're out in restaurants, she co-ordinates with the body guards and the restaurant, arranges transportation and security, and calls in the cops on the occasions when crowd control becomes a fucking imperative. Usually it's getting me and Tanya in and out that is the biggest problem, because it's our asses that people are dying to see, and our pictures that the paparazzi are salivating to sell. Since the rest of the cast are pretty fed up with having their meals turned into an improvised fan convention, we tend to stay at home.

There's a hole in my schedule three weeks into the shoot, where I'm supposed to fly down to Florida for a weekend to do a photo shoot for a big magazine. Isabella is going with me, but Tanya has to stay because she's shooting scenes without me, and she's been in a big sulk about it for days.

The night before I leave I hesitate outside Tanya's room, wondering if I should knock, or shower and slip in later just to show my good will, but I decide to just walk on. Last night's "talk" wasn't pleasant. It went something like this:

"Are you okay, Tanya? You seem kind of tense? Is everything alright?"

"Everything is just peachy, thank you: I'm working my ass off, I never see you except on set when you treat me like I'm staff, and the rest of the time I don't exist on your radar. What do you think could possibly make me tense, Edward?"

"Come on, we're both working our asses off right now, it's nobody's fault the schedule's been crazy for the past couple of weeks! I'm sorry if you think I'm not being the attentive fucking boyfriend I should be, I really am, but honestly I'm barely functioning right now. Come here, baby."

"Don't fucking touch me, I'm so far from being in the mood for cuddling right now, it's not funny! You're a selfish son-of-a-bitch, and you always were. You're going to Florida now, with your precious little P.A. and after we wrap you're just going to take off the same way, just disappear, aren't you? You haven't said a word to me about what will happen after we wrap! Well, let me make this clear: I'm not going to hang around waiting for you to call me, Edward Cullen!"

"Baby, I'm sorry, I can see that you're upset. Please, I wasn't thinking that far ahead, that's all. You know I have a publicity tour for my next movie planned after we wrap but of course we'll get together once I get back from that! How could you think anything else?"

At this point, Tanya yelled at me some more and I ducked for a couple of shoes, but once I got my arms around her she started sobbing, and then I knew we were done with the drama. The rest of the evening panned out predictably: sobbing turned into making out, which turned into some hot and heavy make-up sex, and finally I crept into my room in the middle of the night, completely drained, and collapsed on my own bed. Since I didn't want a repeat, I slunk into my room and locked the door.

No Isabella was there to shake my shoulder the next morning at 6 AM, but she had orchestrated alarms on my iPhone as well as a wake-up call on the land line to my room, and I spent a hellish five minutes trashing around my bedroom trying to find the fucking thing that was playing "Strike up the band" louder and louder. I finally found my phone entangled in my pants under the bed and barely stopped myself from flinging it into the wall. Sometimes I think Isabella has a remote with which she controls my iPhone, iPad, computer and my pants. She should be working for the fucking CIA.

I threw some stuff into a bag, ignoring the shower, and stumbled downstairs to the waiting car. It was Taylor, my body guard, who picked me up, and stopped off on the way to Isabella's hotel to get me my coffee, in spite of which I felt bleary-eyed and in a foul mood as I watched her step into the car, crisp and pretty as always. Sometimes I hate my life.

The flight was uneventful. I downed two Jack Daniels on the rocks and slept most of the time. When we landed, a limo was there to take us directly to the scene of the photo shoot, where Isabella left me to the mercy of the make-up artist. I was pampered and groomed within an inch of my life, the dark circles under my eyes magically erased and then I was eased into a suit and shirt with a massive expensive watch to boot that almost made it hard to lift my arm.

It was a huge house near the ocean they had borrowed and it wasn't until I saw the set-up that I started to feel uncomfortable. It appeared that I wasn't supposed to do this shoot alone. There were two female models in the room dressed in robes, and when the robes came off I didn't know where to look. I mean, I've seen my share of naked girls in my life, even done a couple of movies were I've been naked for all intents and purposes pretending to have sex, but this … The models were heavily made-up, stark naked, shaved all over, couldn't have been more than twenty and looked uncomfortably like pre-pubescent girls with tits. My usually unreliable dick didn't even twitch at the sight. This felt all wrong. If I hadn't had the booze under my belt to dull my senses, I probably would have bolted.

Then the photographer, a tiny but very intimidating woman named Jane Volturi, started ordering us around. She was arranging us in all kinds of quasi S/M situations with the two young models crawling at my feet, pretending to spank one another in front of me and so on. I was supposed to mostly stand or sit around looking blasé or sinister and didn't have to lay hands on them, for which I was thankful, but if I'd had it in me to blush I would have been red all over. Then the director started stripping me down, too, first just my jacket, then my tie and then she asked me to lose the shirt. When was she going to stop? This just wasn't me. Where was my agent when I needed her?

I knew that Isabella was probably somewhere around the shoot, but I didn't see her anywhere – for which I was partly happy, since I didn't want to further cement the image of me as some kind of dirty pervert in her mind – and my phone was with my other things in the changing room. I needed to slow this whole thing down and get a chance to think.

"Hey, miss Volturi," I said as I was fiddling with my shirt buttons, "I'm not sure where this is going, but I wasn't informed that this was going to be a shirtless shoot." Jane Volturi just looked at me coolly with those scary, intense blue eyes, then smirked at me.

"Why, Edward, are you uncomfortable with your body? Do you feel fat?" I felt as if she'd slapped me. I'm a slob and I eat too much junk food and drink too much beer, but when I'm shooting a movie I try to stay in shape and monitor my diet and my training. How could this bitch know that I felt insecure about taking my clothes off in front of a camera? I scowled at her.

"That's not really the point, is it? I have my standards and I know my agent wants to control my image. Stephanie didn't mention that I would have to take my clothes off for this shoot, that's all."

Jane Volturi stepped closer to me, and in spite of the fact that I towered above her, I felt pretty fucking intimidated as she hissed at me. "Well, pretty boy, since I'm the most highly paid and sought after fashion photographer in the U.S. and this shoot is for one of the most prestigious magazines I think your agent was drooling at the mouth and pretty damned grateful when she said yes to this. She knows my work, even if you don't, and she agreed to give me artistic freedom to arrange it. Now, don't pretend that you have a shred of modesty; after all, the world has already seen all that there is to see of you on screen. Just take that fucking shirt off. Now."

I gulped and got out of the shirt, shoes and socks faster than lightning. Who knows what that little witch would have done to me if I refused? She might just have taken one of the prop whips to my back in front of everyone.

But barely an hour later, we got to the point of no return. She wanted me to get naked on the bed, and have a naked model, body painted to look like a python, wrap herself suggestively around me. It was supposed to be a "homage" to the famous picture of the actress Natasha Kinski naked, entwined with a snake, Jane Volturi told me contemptuously as I started to feebly protest. To me, it felt like porn, not art, but I knew that I was badly uneducated when it came to the fine arts, so I couldn't find the arguments to explain why I felt that this was wrong and crossing a line. The witch was right in a way, as an actor I was in some people's eyes just a highly paid whore, paid to expose myself and do as I was told, making women cream their pants and fantasize about having me. I felt humiliated and defeated, like a little boy told to take off his pants and accept the spanking he deserves.

It was then that Isabella finally showed up. I was standing there in just my pants and even though I knew Isabella had seen me like that before, I instinctively crossed my arms protectively across my naked chest. I felt pretty fucking exposed and very, very small right then.

"Is there a problem, Mr. Cullen?" she asked, ignoring Jane Volturi and looking straight into my face with those dark, intelligent eyes, as if I was dressed like a normal person. I sighed and shuffled my bare feet. "Miss Volturi wants to shoot me naked on the bed with a naked female model and I don't feel comfortable about it, that's all. What do you think, Isabella?" I looked at her pleadingly, hoping that her good sense would be my guide. Was I being a prude and should I just go along with everything this woman said?

Isabella's dark eyes became even darker, and she turned to Jane Volturi, quick as a whip.

"I'm afraid this is all highly unprofessional of you Miss Volturi. I've read the contract for this shoot, and it doesn't stipulate any right for you to order Mr. Cullen to expose himself in any way. I suggest that you either change your plans immediately or we're out of here on the first plane. And, may I remind you that if your employer ever wants to book an interview with Mr. Cullen again, they had better give his agent the right to go over your photos before publication. I'll get on the phone with the editor right now, if it's necessary."

For a moment I thought I would have the dubious pleasure of watching a really nasty cat fight. Jane Volturi's hands were clawlike as she stared murder at Isabella with her pale blue eyes protruding from her head, and it was just my respect of Isabella's personal space that prevented me from yanking her away and putting myself between them. Then the little blond witch suddenly relaxed, and smiled an icy smile at Isabella.

"Very well. Whoever you are, you've just screwed up this pretty boy's one shot at immortality. We'll call this a wrap now, but I expect him to be here at six thirty tomorrow morning to do the morning part of the shoots. He will be clothed, never fear." Her hand went out and hard fingers pinched me at the waist, and I winced as she leered at me.

"If you can pinch an inch … well, I think you look better in a Calvin Klein than in your birthday suit, anyway, Edward."

Isabella's hand shot out and gripped Jane Volturi's arm in an iron fist and I had the pleasure of seeing this intimidating little woman wince in fear.

"It's 'Mr. Cullen' to you, Miss Volturi, and I'm Isabella Swan, Mr. Cullen's personal assistant. I will be attending tomorrow's shoot very closely together with Taylor, Mr. Cullen's body guard, who, I might add, has the right to carry a concealed weapon. I expect no further trouble, now, do you?"

With her arm still firmly clutched in Isabella's hand, Jane Volturi suddenly wasn't so scary anymore. Between clenched teeth she muttered. "No, I expect no trouble at all from either Mr. Cullen or any of his employees. Now, please get off my set."

Hearing those words, I was so happy I could have cried, and quickly pulled Isabella with me to the changing room. I got into my own clothes while Isabella stood guard by the door, calling Taylor to come get us and drive with us to our hotel. I felt sort of shaky, so I asked Isabella to accompany me to my room, where my bag was waiting for me, already unpacked. I looked at her, so smooth and calm while I felt like I'd just gone through a wringer. I guess the likes of Jane Volturi just couldn't touch someone like Isabella Swan.

"You really are amazing, Isabella. You saved my ass today, in more ways than one. I felt so fucking intimidated by that woman that I would probably have done anything she told me to if you hadn't showed up. She made me feel dirty, cheap and stupid and like I didn't have a say in anything that happened to me."

Suddenly, my legs felt weak and I slumped down on the bed, shrugging out of my jacket and kicking my sneakers off. I felt like I could sleep a million years. I could feel the bed moving as Isabella sat down next to me on the bed, and a cool hand gently touched my hair, disgustingly stiff with products. I leaned into her touch and almost groaned, it felt so good to have her fingers in my hair.

I rolled over and slung my arm around her waist, pressing my face into her side and mumbled, "You're too good for me, Isabella. Why in the world would you want to work for an asshole like me?" She kept stroking my hair, and I could hear a smile in her voice when she replied.

"Well, the pay is good, and the entertainment value is high. You're the less organized man I know and you're as un-coordinated as a fourteen-year-old. Your personal hygiene leaves a little to be desired." I groaned again, internally wincing at the memory of all the times in the past few weeks that Isabella had had the dubious pleasure of seeing me make a disgusting, silly ass out of myself, on or off-screen. She continued, her voice less amused and softer.

"But the bottom line is, I really like you Edward. I think you're smarter than you let on, and funnier than you think. You're good at what you do and you try to make other people happy even when they don't deserve it. You think you're a selfish asshole, and maybe you are, some of the time, but there's so much more to you that the world doesn't know." I rolled over on my back so that I could see her pretty face hovering above me, because those words were about the last thing I expected to hear from her.

I just looked and looked and everything I saw about her drew me in. Her warm eyes, her soft hair, the full bottom lip that just begged to be bitten. But the only thing I could blurt out was, "You called me Edward!"

She laughed then, a deep, throaty, genuine belly laugh that was the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard and the one sound in the world I knew I needed to hear again. To my mortification I was immediately and painfully hard in my pants, and simultaneously wanted to turn on my stomach to hide it from her, and not move an inch away from her.

Still smiling, she looked at my face with something I could only describe as affection.

"You're _my_ Edward and that's why no stuck-up bitch like Jane Volturi will ever get to order you around as long as I'm with you. And Edward? Please call me Bella. That's what my friends call me." And then, she leaned down and kissed me.

Let me just say, when I turned up at the photo shoot early next morning even the best make-up artist in the world could not erase the just-fucked look from me or the silly smile that kept erupting even when Jane was shouting at me to look brooding or serious. I was walking in a dream, and whenever I would catch Bella's smiling eyes on me, it was all I could do to will down the boner at the memory of all the things we'd done in my hotel bed last night.

All I knew was that as soon as we got back to Vancouver, I was having the talk with Tanya and moving out of that fucking house into an apartment with Bella where we could both walk around naked on our free time and I would be free to bend her over any type of furniture at any given moment. Okay, so maybe I _was_ a sex fiend, but it was Bella who made me so.

And you know what the best part was? Going commando under those expensive suits all through the shoot and knowing that my boxers were resting safely in Bella's purse, to be returned to me only after we'd made the mile high club on the plane back later that afternoon. What can I say? I never _could_ say no to a challenge.

16


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